A Pakistani cleric who solemnized the wedding of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi has disclosed that the event did not follow Islamic Sharia law. Mufti Mohammad Saeed, the cleric who performed the couple’s Islamic marriage in 2018, stated that it occurred within Bushra Bibi’s iddat period. Why iddat is obligatory in Islam?
The iddat period, which typically lasts three months, is defined as the waiting period that a Muslim woman must observe in the event of her husband’s death or marriage breakdown.
Mr. Saeed testified on Wednesday at the hearing of a petition seeking legal action against the Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf for marrying his present wife Bushra Bibi when she was supposedly on Iddat, according to the news agency.
Muhammad Hanif filed the petition, following which the matter became public. The cleric stated that he had a positive relationship with the former Prime Minister and was a member of his core committee. He went on to say that Mr. Khan had taken him to Lahore to execute the couple’s Nikkah.
According to him, a woman portraying herself as Ms. Bushra’s sister informed him that the pair may marry because all Sharia requirements for their wedding had been met.
Mr. Saeed stated that he conducted their marriage on January 1, 2018, and that the pair began living together in Islamabad shortly after.
Mr. Khan, according to the priest, contacted him again in February 2018 and requested that he perform the ceremony again, stating that Ms. Bushra’s iddat period had not yet finished at the time of their first Nikah because she had divorced in November 2017. As a result, the ex-PM ruled that their first marriage to Bushra Bibi was not Sharia-compliant.
According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the cleric stated that Mr. Khan and Bushra Bibi “deliberately entered into an illegal and un-Islamic union for the sake of a mere prediction” since the former was sure that if he married on New Year’s Day in 2018, he would become Prime Minister.
Why iddat is obligatory in Islam?
The object of the iddat is first to ascertain whether the wife is pregnant and if so, the paternity of the child. Secondly, in the event of a revocable divorce, it gives the husband the opportunity to return to his wife, and thirdly, it gives a widow the opportunity to mourn the death of her husband.
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